I've been asked this quite a few times in my life, most recently, this evening at work. I said I didn't think so, and asked how he would define a hippie. He didn't give me a real response, citing another coworker as his definition, and explaining that someone else had said I looked like a hippie. The thing is, I don't see how people place me into this hippie category, when being a "hippie" can mean so many different things now, in 2009. Furthermore, I've hardly had time to have conversations with anyone at work, and I have to wear standard issue t-shirts to identify me as an employee above all else.
It's not that I necessarily have anything against personally being a hippie, I just don't feel I deserve to be called what I consider a hippie, nor do I think I deserve to be considered a pothead, which I find is generally a big qualifier. In college, two of my room friends had a discussion that I was present for. One said her father was an activist/hippie in the 60s: smoked pot, rocked out at Woodstock, praised peace, wore bell-bottoms and tie-dye... The other retorted that her father was also an "activist." He'd been in the army. I'm not sure either of them really had the same concept of a hippie as existed in their fathers' days. I think that people have criticized and belittled, as well as broadened the 60s hippie subculture and its goals and efforts.
I've had people tell me that I am a hippie because I am a vegetarian, or interested in recycling, which sort of bothers. Maybe being a vegetarian was "hip" and unusual back in the 60s, but now it is around. I mean seriously. And I was raised a vegetarian, so it's not as if I chose it as part of a hippie lifestyle. (But oh perhaps you could say I was just raised into a hippie life. Though I would for sure say that my sister and my mother are more hippie-esque than I, and both have become more so as time has gone by...) And being eco-friendly/a "tree-hugger?" Come on, it is a responsibility anymore, it's not something that just the hippies should be doing.
I don't think this is where my coworker was going with asking me, and I certainly didn't get into it with him at all. But it seemed interesting to me, especially there, where I don't feel like I have displayed much personality at all (possibly lame) or any hippie style, that people should consider me such. I don't know, am I? Is it just a vibe I radiate?
Next up: Learning that the Easter Bunny does not exist.